


Oh My God Do I Pray

by ZaraTsubasa



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, No prior knowledge of sense8 necessary, Pre-Canon, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 16:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15822438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaraTsubasa/pseuds/ZaraTsubasa
Summary: Lance McClain. Princess Allura of Altea. Takashi Shirogane. Keith Kogane. Katie "Pidge" Holt. Matthew Holt. Coran Hieronymous Wimbleton Smythe. Hunk Garrett.Eight people. Eight lives that span countless light years, countless experiences. These eight people should have nothing to do with each other, except that they all seem to share the ability to see people and places they shouldn't.It all starts with a song.





	Oh My God Do I Pray

**Author's Note:**

> A Voltron canon verse Sense8 au where Shiro, Lance, Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran and Matt are all in a cluster together and thus able to appear as visions to each other. This fic takes place pre canon and is compliant with season 1 of Voltron, though no prior knowledge of Sense8 is required to read this. I hope you all enjoy.

“Tío Lance, Tío Lance!”

Lance looks up when he hears one of his nieces calling his name, glancing around the crowded diner where his family has gone out to celebrate his oldest brother getting engaged. It’s a cozy little place with red and white checkered tablecloths on the various tables and decorative paintings of all kinds lining the walls, and in the corner across from the door they have a little karaoke stage set up. He can see his sister’s daughter Nina jumping off of it to run up to him, and so Lance has a good idea of what she’s going to ask him before she even reaches his seat.

“Tío Lance, you like karaoke, right?” Nina asks as she bounds up to him, and Lance can’t help the fond smile he gives the young girl.

“Let me guess, you’d like me to get up there and sing, right?” he returns her question with another as he puts down the piece of pizza he’d been working on. Nina grins back at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet and cheering openly when Lance gives in and stands up. Across the table from him, his sister Sophie is trying not to smile, and Lance levels a playful glare back at her for her daughter’s antics. “You owe me for this, Soph.”

She laughs openly at that, rolling her eyes and making shooing motions for him to hit the stage. “You say that like you don’t love it, you show boat!”

Lance lets Nina tug him to the karaoke machine without complaint, but he insists upon picking the song himself. He isn’t quite sure why he picks the song he does. He’ll wonder about it later, but in the moment he can’t say that he picks it for any specific reason other than that it felt right.

He punches in his selection with the dramatic flair that he gives any actions he knows are being watched and struts onto the stage, giving his family an over the top bow as he grabs the microphone and the opening chords of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” begin.

 _“Twenty-five years and my life is still trying to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination,”_ Lance sings, gesturing dramatically and hamming it up for his family. He gets plenty of whoops and cheers from everyone at their table and it spurs him on into the next part of the verse.

_“I realized quickly when I knew I should that the world was made up of this brotherhood of man, for whatever that means.”_

Lance draws in a breath to launch into the following lyrics and stops, air catching in his chest when he opens his eyes and realizes that his surroundings have changed.

Between one breath and the next he’d moved, the diner and his family and everything melting away into an entirely different and entirely unfamiliar place.

The problem is, Lance is used to this. This isn’t the first time that he’s somehow found himself suddenly beside people he doesn’t know, in places he doesn’t recognize. It isn’t the second, or even the tenth either. One moment he’ll be living his life, hanging out at school studying or spending time with his family, and in the time it takes to blink he’ll be somewhere else. It’s never long before he’s moved right back to where he was again, as if nothing had ever happened at all, so at this point Lance has learned to go with it and let this odd ability of his take him where it will.

Lance lets out the breath he’d been holding and looks around, taking in the cavernous ceilings and soft blue fluorescent lights of what honestly looks like the foyer of a castle. The room is huge and echoing, and it’s made much creepier by the fact that the place seems to be entirely abandoned. A quick glance at the thin layer of dust coating the floor tells him he’s right to think so, but he can’t help but feel unsettled. Every time Lance has ever been moved somewhere, it had always been less that he’d been moved some _where_ and more that he’d been moved to some _one_. If he were asked, Lance wouldn’t even be able to say how he knew that much, but it’s that thought that gets him moving down the hallway in front of him despite it being completely dark that way. If someone drew him here, Lance wants to know who.

 _“And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed just to get it all out, what’s in my head,”_ Lance continues to sing the song from earlier under his breath as he wanders down the corridor, pushing down his own anxiety with the familiar tune. There’s a soft blue light glowing up the stairs ahead of him and Lance follows it, letting his intuition guide him further into the castle.

 _“And I-”_ Lance starts to sing the next line and freezes, surprised into silence by what he finds in the next room.

With one short turn, the building around him segues from abandoned medieval castle to a room that could easily pass as the set to an episode of _Star Trek._ A small central console stands at the center of the room, and surrounding it in a ring are eight taller structures that Lance can only describe as _pods._

He moves closer slowly, senses on full alert as he scans the place for any possible threats, but the room seems to be just as empty as everything else around here. He’s about to turn around and give up on the room entirely when a barely audible sound reaches his ears, and it’s only upon a second look that Lance realizes with a start that two of the eight pods are occupied.

“What the hell?” he mutters to himself as he walks closer to one of them, squinting to make out the figure that appears to be fast asleep inside.

Lance can’t make out a whole lot through the foggy glass, but the bright orange hair and matching mustache of the man in the first pod are impossible to miss. He can just make out that there are small blue markings beneath the man’s eyes, too, but that’s the only detail he can see that stands out. He turns to the second pod thinking that maybe that will give him more information, but the person Lance sees has him freezing in place.

If this strange abandoned building is a castle, then the girl sleeping within the pod is most definitely its princess. She has dark skin and flowing silver hair, and Lance can just make out little pink triangles beneath her eyes, matching birthmarks to the man in the pod beside her. Her face is relaxed and peaceful, hands folded over her stomach where the dark blue of her dress fades into a full white skirt. She’s absolutely beautiful, and seeing her brings several more questions to Lance’s mind rather than answering any of the ones he already had.

He hears another soft sound, and with a start realizes that the girl’s lips are _moving_. Lance thinks he might make out a tune, but the idea that this strange girl is singing in her sleep is the most baffling thought he’s had about this place yet.

Lance reaches out toward the princess, to do what he isn’t sure, but just as his hand is about to touch the pod in front of him a loud cheer erupts from somewhere to his right and the moment is gone.

He startles and rips his gaze to the source of the cheering, heart leaping in his chest as he realizes that just as suddenly as he’d been whisked away, he’s back in the diner. It takes him several moments to figure that he’s still on stage, the lyrics to “What’s Up” still scrolling on a screen behind him, and the cheering that had caught his attention is coming from a group of his siblings in the crowd in front of him.

“Keep going, Lance!” one of his brothers call out with a laugh, and it’s the calls of support from his family that break him out of his disoriented haze. Lance glances back at the lyrics behind him, smiling at his family as he picks back up on the song.

 _“And I, I am feeling a little peculiar,”_ he sings, sleeping princesses momentarily forgotten as the thrill of performing returns.

***

In Allura’s dreams, someone is singing.

It’s been hundreds of years since she’s set foot on a Galra ship- she knows she hasn’t done it since she was a little girl. But Allura recognizes that she’s walking down the hall of one all the same, gliding silently past armed sentries that don’t seem to notice she’s even there.

It’s a prison ship, or at least she thinks it is with the rows of glowing cells lining the walls as far as her eyes can see. Luckily, most of them are empty, and as Allura walks past them it takes her a moment to figure out what it is she’s looking for.

 _“And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high,”_ a melody drifts to her and Allura finds herself turning down the hall it’s coming from, determined to follow it to its source, _“And I scream from the top of my lungs, what’s going on?”_

She slips down the corridor as quietly as she can, drawn to the soft lilt of the voice like a moth to a flame. It leads her to the only occupied cell at the end of the hall, where its lone occupant is sat with his back to the wall, head tilted back and eyes closed as he sings the same tune that’s been haunting her.

 _“And I say hey, hey,”_ the prisoner hums under his breath, his voice a low tenor that flows through the notes of the melody with a practiced ease, _“I said hey, what’s going on?”_

The shock of white in his otherwise dark hair falls into the young man’s face, and as he brushes it out of his eyes Allura realizes with a start that his hand is made of metal rather than flesh. Her heart lurches at the thought of what this man must have suffered at the hands of the Galra, at what must have happened for their technology to have replaced his hand at all, and that empathetic pain is what draws her into the cell with him.

 _“And I say hey, hey,”_ Allura sings along with him, hitting the notes though she isn’t sure how she knows them as she sinks to her knees in front of this strange, alluring man she’s never met. _“I said hey, what’s going on?”_

He opens his eyes then, his head tilting as he meets her gaze with a small confused smile. Allura inhales sharply and leans back, the realization that he can see her when no one else in this dream had hitting her with unexpected chills. She expects him to say something, to comment on this strange woman suddenly there with him in his prison cell, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he reaches out and pats the ground beside him, resuming his own relaxed posture as he continues his song.

 _“Oh,”_ the man sings softly, and the little smile on his face grows warmer when Allura shifts to sit against the wall next to him. _“Oh, oh, oh.”_

 _“Oh,”_ Allura sings back, unable to keep from smiling back as the two of them light up the small cell, _“Oh, oh, oh.”_

She isn’t sure how long she stays in the cell with him, sitting side by side keeping each other company in the dark, but Allura drifts back to sleep with to the same sweet melody in her head and the memory of a kind smile.

***

In the space between one blink and the next, the pretty girl in the blue and white dress is gone, and though he’s not surprised by it Shiro still can’t help but feel a little disappointed. It had been nice to have company, even for just a few moments. One smile from her had made him feel so much better, had let him forget about the pain and suffering unfolding around him for just a few precious seconds.

He closes his eyes again, trying to fall asleep to a song he hasn’t heard in years that’s been stuck on repeat in his head, and he feels like he’s almost succeeded when the sudden loud roar of an engine sounds in his ear. Shiro jolts awake at the foreign noise, one he knows he shouldn’t be hearing out in the middle of space, but he’s immediately forced to double take when he takes in his surroundings.

The blank grey walls of his prison cell have melted away, the stagnant air replaced by a brisk wind that whips at his cheeks with sudden cold. It takes several more seconds for Shiro to recognize the bright scenery whipping past him, and in those seconds he almost falls.

It’s only in his moments of surprised flailing that he actually looks down and realizes that he’s moving because he’s sitting astride the back of a motorcycle, a black one with cherry red accents that could only belong to one person.

“Keith? KeEEIITH-!” Shiro tries to call out, his voice mostly lost to the wind. The driver doesn’t seem to have noticed he’s here yet, but he turns a corner with such speed and pinpoint accuracy that Shiro’s voice is cut off in a strangled yell. He grips the seat beneath him for dear life, but with the wind whipping through his hair and the first breaths of fresh air in his lungs in months, any terror he could have been feeling is replaced by sheer giddy joy.

Keith leans forward as the bike speeds up, and even though he almost falls off again Shiro can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of him. He doesn’t know how he suddenly ended up light years away on the back of Keith’s motorcycle, but the freedom feels too good for him to bother to stop and question it. Instead he holds on as best he can and takes in the beauty of the city lights around him, buildings he thinks he recognizes blurring together in streaks of color as they drive past.

 _“And I try, oh my god do I try!”_ Shiro throws his head back and laughs, the lyrics of the song from earlier rolling off his tongue and feeling like the most natural thing in the world.

The bike slows suddenly as its rider finally hears him and turns around to look, but just as Shiro’s opening his mouth again to speak, a noise to his left catches Shiro’s attention and just like that Keith is gone.

The wind dies, the cold fading to a damp chill, and Shiro turns his head to see that he’s back in his prison cell and a guard is glaring down at him through the bars.

“Pipe down, already, the whole damn cell block can hear you,” the guard snaps at him, and Shiro must visibly deflate because with one last irritated glare, the gruff alien leaves him in peace.

Shiro relaxes back against the wall with a shaky exhale, and if it weren’t for the cold still clinging to him and the song stuck in his head, he’d stop and wonder if what he just saw was even real. And yet, the cold is there, and the song continues, leaving Shiro with the comforting knowledge that for just a moment he’d been back with the boy he considered his brother again.

He leans his head back against the wall, and in a near whisper he continues to sing.

_“I try all the time in this institution.”_

***

Keith slows to a halt and parks his bike on the curb, mind reeling as he tries to process what he thinks he just saw and heard.

He knows himself to be a lot of things. He’s brash, impulsive, not to mention almost constantly sarcastic. But he isn’t crazy, and he could swear that he just heard and briefly saw Shiro on the back of his bike. Shiro, the guy who had been like a brother to him throughout his years at the Garrison. Shiro, his friend that Keith had always known he could rely on.

Shiro, who had gone into space last year on a mission to Pluto’s moon Kerberos and never returned.

And was it just Keith, or had that been a 4 Non Blondes song Shiro had been shrilly singing?

Come to think of it, the longer Keith sits still and unmoving, the more he thinks he can hear snatches of that same exact song. He isn’t sure where it’s coming from, but it’s getting louder, to the point where Keith starts actually looking around him for the source of it and feels his stomach flip when his surroundings change in the time it takes to turn his head.

Keith looks up and finds himself blinded, the same song from earlier suddenly everywhere and obnoxiously loud. When Keith is finally able to get his bearings again he finds himself on a small stage, and someone to his left is singing along to the verse.

_“And I pray, oh my god do I pray.”_

He turns his head to see a guy about his age standing there with a microphone in his hands, someone with brown hair, blue eyes and a million watt smile that has no right to be as charismatic as it is. The boy is hamming it up for the small crowd that’s gathered around him, singing the higher notes off key on purpose and doing exaggerated cheesy dance moves to go with them. The people closest to the stage are laughing with him, shouting the lyrics along with him as he performs.

 _“I pray every single day for a revolution,”_ the guy sings, raising a fist in the air and grinning at the cheers he gets in response.

Keith isn’t sure what it is about this stranger, but something about watching him dance around stage is just _fun._ He finds himself smiling at a particularly ridiculous move, then covering his mouth to keep himself from outright laughing as the guy loses his balance and almost falls over.

The singing boy rights himself with ease, mouthing the words “I meant to do that” to the crowd with a playful smile, but then he glances to his right. Bright blue eyes land directly on Keith and he finds himself paralyzed, frozen in place as he realizes suddenly that this guy can see him.

He had assumed that no one could see him, when nobody in the audience had reacted to seeing somebody else randomly appear on stage. Maybe this person onstage is different somehow, but Keith would be hard pressed to say why that would be. Suddenly his whole body is tensed, waiting anxiously for this guy to say something, to point him out and ask what the hell he was doing onstage.

Except, the guy doesn’t say anything. He looks Keith up and down, taking him in, and then he _smiles_. He gives Keith a small, shy smile and raises the microphone again as the next verse starts. Keith looks on slack jawed as the guy sings again, and this time it’s directed at him.

 _“And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed,”_ he sings, and Keith isn’t sure if this guy expects him to sing along, but his fingers are tapping along to the beat against his leg as he’s unable to tear his eyes away from the boy in front of him. _“Just to get it all out, what’s in my head.”_

Keith isn’t sure why he does it, but before he can think twice, his lips are moving to sing along. It isn’t much, just a barely there whisper of lyrics that’s nearly drowned out by the other guy’s singing, but he notices and his face lights up when he sees. _“And I, I am feeling a little peculiar.”_

It’s almost like a challenge, the two of them following the lyrics with their eyes locked and a beaming smile on this stranger’s face. Keith isn’t singing, just speaking the lyrics in tune under his breath, but the other guy is belting out the words with enough energy for both of them and so Keith isn’t about to stop now.

_“And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs-”_

Keith blinks and the stage is gone, whisked away just as quickly as he’d been brought there, leaving him alone on the side of a city street atop his bike.

He exhales winter air slowly, and the song he and the guy from the karaoke bar were singing is still fresh in his mind. As Keith starts his bike back up, he finishes the verse under his breath like an afterthought, wondering the same question to himself as he speeds off into the night.

_“What’s going on?”_

_***_

The boy in the biker jacket is gone somewhere in the time it takes Lance to finish the chorus, and he’s still trying to figure out whether or not he’s disappointed by that by the time he’s done taking his bows and surrendering the stage to a gaggle of his little cousins.

“Lance, that was great!” Sophie says with a laugh as he gets back to their family’s table. He smiles back, but in the wake of everything he’s seen Lance isn’t sure if it reaches his eyes or not.

“Thanks, sis. Hey, I’ll be right back, okay? I’m gonna use the restroom real quick,” he answers.

“Sure, sure. Just don’t take too long, I think Nina and Leo are picking a Rick Astley hit,” she says, and Lance’s answering laugh feels a lot more genuine as he slips past his family into the back hallway.

 _“Hey, hey,”_ he sings to himself as he walks, frowning a little as he moves toward the bathroom with the same song still going in his head on repeat.

He ducks into the bathroom at the back of the restaurant and instead of heading to a stall, he leans against the counter, sifting through what he’d seen tonight onstage. First there had been the castle, and the two people resting peacefully in pods. He really wasn’t sure what to make of that, especially since he didn’t have the faintest idea of where that could have been, or even what purpose the pods could have served.

Then there had been the boy that had joined him onstage, a boy with hell fire in his eyes who had given him a barely there smile when he’d muttered along to the words of Lance’s song. Lance really hadn’t been sure how to react to him just showing up on stage like that, but he thought he’d reacted fairly well at the time.

Lance is still lost in thought when a new voice reaches his ears, one he hasn’t heard before that still sings the same song that’s been plaguing him all night.

_“-said hey, what’s going on?”_

He looks up, and even though he knows that he hasn’t heard anyone else come in and he should be alone, there’s someone standing next to him in the mirror.

The kid standing beside him is probably younger than him and definitely shorter, with unruly brown hair that’s tied up in a ponytail and big round glasses that she pushes further up the bridge of her nose as Lance watches curiously. He can’t see what she’s doing, maybe washing her hands, but it doesn’t matter because a moment later she looks up and their eyes meet in the mirror.

Lance can see the girl’s eyes widen, her mouth falling open in surprise, and in the blink of an eye she’s gone. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and relaxes, then he starts digging around in his pockets for his phone.

 **Lance (7:34 p.m.):** You will not believe the shit I have seen tonight. Emergency meetup at your place in an hour?

 **Hunk (7:35 p.m.):** Sure thing, buddy. Come on over, I’ll make cookies and you can tell me all about it.

***

Pidge stares back at the mirror with wide eyes, jaw slack as her eyes track the spot where she could have sworn she just saw a face she didn’t even recognize.

She stares, turns to check behind her again, then turns back and stares some more.

Pidge could have sworn she’d seen another person there, but all she’d caught was a pair of curious blue eyes before she’d looked to check behind her and the face was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. She leans farther forward and groans, head almost touching the bathroom countertop as she rests her hands against it.

“Okay,” she mutters to herself, “that’s it. No more combining 5 Hour Energy shots with my espresso. That shit may be delicious, but it is _so_ not worth hallucinating over.”

She looks up one more time, just to be absolutely sure nothing’s there, then she finishes washing her hands and leaves the bathroom as quickly as she can. Strange faces in the mirror be damned, Pidge has work to do.

The upstairs hallway is a familiar trek as she heads back to her room, scooping up her laptop from where she’d left it on the bed and moving to shimmy through her open window onto the roof. It’s getting colder outside, chillier but not yet unbearable, and it’s nothing that the layers of hoodies that Pidge has put on can’t handle. This is where she thinks best, the place where if she closes her eyes, she can still feel the familiar presence of her older brother Matt in the space just to her left.

That’s what it’s all about nowadays, after all. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold out, or if the same annoying song has been stuck in her head in the most distracting manner possible- all that matters is the search for Matt. She knows that he’s out there, somewhere deep in space, and he is most definitely still alive.

Pidge had promised him the day he’d left that if he didn’t come back, she’d be going up to space to get him. Now all she has to do is make good on that promise.

_“And I said hey, hey. I said hey, what’s going on?”_

A hauntingly familiar voice floats to her on the wind just as she’s booting up her laptop, and her head snaps up on instinct, breath freezing in her chest at the offkey singing she’d recognize anywhere.

“Matt?”

Pidge blinks and all of sudden, she’s somewhere else, crammed at the edge of a small barred off room that looks way too much like a prison cell. A ring of beings that are most definitely alien sit against the walls next to her, and sitting among them is Matt.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed her yet, but Pidge would know that face no matter how many bruises tried to disfigure it. There’s a slow, patient smile on his face that makes Pidge’s heart ache with familiarity, and although he’s a bit beaten up and definitely worse for wear it’s _him_.

Then his head turns, and her heart leaps into her throat as their eyes meet and she reaches out to him-

“Katie?” her mother’s voice calls out suddenly, just loud enough to startle her out of her daze, “Katie, where are you sweetie?”

Pidge turns her head on impulse, and by the time she turns back Matt is gone. It’s just her and the empty space to her left in the cold stillness of the night, and Pidge is quick to wipe away the hot tears that come unbidden.

“On the roof, Mom!” she calls back, when she’s got her voice under control enough that she knows it won’t waver, “I thought I’d study out in the fresh air, I’ll be in in a little bit.”

Pidge turns and sure enough, her mother is standing just outside the window, a soft look of concern on her face that makes her heartache feel that much more unbearable. Colleen Holt has gotten thinner in the past few months, the weight of having lost her husband and son bowing her shoulders and making her look much smaller than she is, and Pidge can’t help but imagine that she looks much the same way.

She knows that she can’t tell her mother what she’s up to, that it’s for the best that she continue to think that young Katie’s next stop in education is the private charter school she’d selected and not the Galaxy Garrison. There’s too much risk involved in letting her mom in on her plans, but Pidge still wishes more than anything that she could promise out loud that she’d put their family back together again.

“Alright, don’t stay out too long, sweetie, it’s cold out here,” Pidge just catches her mother saying as she’s shifted from her own thoughts back to the present. She glances back down at her laptop and clicks to start the program she’s made to monitor the Garrison’s radio chatter before she looks back to her mom.

“I won’t,” she promises, then before he mom can go she adds, “Hey, do we still have the stuff for hot chocolate?”

The olive branch is obvious- sharing thoughts and feelings over a late night cup of hot chocolate is a time honored Holt tradition. But reaching out has never been Pidge’s strong suit, so the way her mother’s face lights up at the question is a welcome relief.

“I’m sure I can find enough for two,” her mother says, and her smile is the most genuine Pidge has seen it in weeks. “I’ll come back up to let you know when it’s ready.”

“Thank you,” Pidge replies. Her mom is just turning away from the window when she calls, “And, Mom? I love you.”

Her mother turns back, startled momentarily before she beams back at Pidge and says, “I love you too, sweetheart.”

Pidge turns back to her laptop with a faint smile on her face, more determined than ever to get her father and brother back as she scans through all the information the Galaxy Garrison has to offer.

 _“I said hey,”_ she sings to herself, _“What’s going on?”_

***

Matt glances to his right, head tilting in confusion as he could’ve sworn he’d heard the last voice he’d be expecting out in the middle of nowhere space.

“Pidge?”

His voice comes out hoarse and uncertain, and he clears his throat with a little shake of his head. He misses his little sister more than he could possibly say, misses her with the same fierce ache he feels when he thinks of any member of the family he’d been separated from. But he knows that it simply isn’t possible that he could have heard her voice. Pidge is back on Earth where she belongs, and Matt is a prisoner on an alien ship hundreds of light years away.

Still, Matt has to admit that thinking of his little sister takes an edge off the pain. Whatever she’s doing back on Earth, he hopes she’s doing well.

With that thought in mind, he turns back to his fellow prisoners, trying for a smile as he tries to resume singing for them. He knows that none of them speak English, but even with the dozens of language barriers his fellow prisoners still seem fascinated whenever Matt sings. Some of them will even try to join him, in whistles and clicks and tuneless humming that never fails to make everyone feel just the tiniest bit better.

Matt opens his mouth to speak, but when he turns to the alien sitting next to him he finds that they’re not there anymore.

“Uh, guys..?” Matt asks uncertainly, and his eyes widen as he looks around and realizes that his surroundings have changed.

“What the _fuck?_ ” he whispers to himself, looking around and realizing as his stomach bottoms out that he’s no longer in his prison cell. He’s somewhere entirely different, and although the air here is just as dusty and stale, it is way more open and spacious than the tiny cell he’s resolved himself to sharing with five other aliens for who knows how long it’s been.

Suddenly Matt is looking up at high vaulted ceilings with sweeping archways, and when he turns to look around at his more immediate surroundings he finds himself looking at eight tall structures that he can only describe as pods _._ They surround him in a loose ring as he finds himself standing at a podium at the center of them all, and Matt barely suppresses a undignified shriek as he realizes that the two immediately in front of him are occupied.

The two figures are completely still in their pods as Matt approaches, taking in more details the closer he gets. One is a young woman with silver hair and a fancy dress, the other an older man with a mustache and a blue uniform almost like that of a guard. Matt wants to get a closer look, but as he draws near a flicker of movement catches his eye and the realization dawns on him that the sleepers’ lips are moving- _just_ their lips.

“Okay, what the fuck,” Matt mutters to himself, moving in as close as he dares to the strange new people in an attempt to hear what they might be saying in their sleep, “that’s creepy as hell...”

Then he picks up on a tune, a soft hum in the air just outside the pods that sends Matt reeling.

This girl and her guard aren’t just talking in their sleep- they’re singing. And Matt recognizes that specific tune.

 _“And I said hey, hey,”_ the two aliens mumble, lips moving slightly out of sync though the lyrics they’re whispering are the same, _“I said hey, what’s going on.”_

Matt takes a shocked step back, eyes wide as his brain struggles to make meaning out of what he’s seeing and hearing. He opens his mouth, probably to let out another string of expletives, when an abrupt bang sounds just to the left of him and he finds himself jolting back to the present.

Suddenly Matt is back in his cell, almost as if he’d never left, but now there is a gaping hole where the bars of the cell used to be and a thick cloying smoke is filling the air around him. He coughs and reaches up to cover his mouth with his sleeve, and he honestly isn’t sure whether he’s more confused by the strange sleeping people he’s just encountered in his- Visions? Hallucinations?- or by the fact that apparently his prison cell is being raided.

Matt’s too busy coughing and trying not to choke on the smoke quickly filling the small space to think on that any further, and before he can react beyond throwing his body in front of his fellow prisoners to protect them, a tall figure is emerging from the smoke and stepping into the room.

The new figure stands with their shoulders back, calm amidst the chaos, and Matt barely has time to note the gas mask on their face or their large feathered ears before the figure is holding out a hand to him.

“I am called Te-Osh,” the figure announces to him, and Matt’s heart lifts at the realization that maybe he’s had a stroke of luck for the first time in months, that maybe he’s about to be a free man a lot sooner than he’d anticipated. “If you wish for freedom, you will come with me.”

Matt doesn’t hesitate, the vision he’d had moment ago all but forgotten in the face of this new wrinkle. He stands as best he can whilst trying not to hack up a lung, and he takes Te-Osh’s hand.

He tries his best to ignore the song still playing in the back of his head as he takes his first steps toward freedom.

***

Coran knows that he is dreaming, knows it the way that he knows that packs of Yelmores are linked at the ears and Unilu take incredible skill to haggle with. It’s something he’s just able to _tell,_ instantly and without hesitation, but that doesn’t stop him from being immediately and irrevocably _fascinated_ by the scene unfolding around him.

Standing in front of him is a young being who is most definitely alien- Coran can tell from his strangely rounded ears alone- with warm, kind eyes and a smile that he’s sure could put any being at ease instantaneously. They’re in a small room together that’s cramped but cozy, with all manner of appliances and practical devices around them that Coran doesn’t understand but would love to learn the purposes of. Somewhere nearby someone is singing, and although he’s sure he’s never heard the song before back on Altea, Coran knows that if asked he could sing it word for word.

Interestingly enough, the alien in the room begins to do just that, reaching out to turn a dial on a compact rectangular device next to him. The song grows in volume, and Coran realizes with no small amount of giddiness that the song isn’t coming from anyone singing nearby, but from the device itself.

 _“And I say hey, hey,”_ the young man sings as Coran watches with rapt attention, _“I said hey, what’s going on?”_

The man leans against the counter with a self assured ease, and though Coran doubts the alien can see him, he leans back as well to mirror his relaxed posture.

It’s only then that the man looks over in Coran’s direction, taking the older Altean completely by surprise as he makes eye contact and turns that easy smile on him. He doesn’t seem at all surprised by Coran’s sudden appearance, and in fact turns to talk to him as if him being there is the most normal thing in the world.  

“Hey, how’s it going?” the man says, nonchalant as can be. Coran has to turn and look behind him, just to be sure that he isn’t speaking to someone there, but it’s just the two of them. “I’m Hunk, what’s your name?”

“You can see me,” Coran can’t help but blurt out, slightly awed by how calm the other man is being about all of this. Had the tables been turned and he had suddenly appeared in Coran’s space, he knows with no amount of uncertainty that he’d put the young man in a headlock- that is, provided he had the element of surprise of course. The young man- Hunk, so he’d called himself- seems to be an inch taller than Coran and certainly has him beat in sheer size.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, believe it or not,” Hunk answers with that same genial smile.

“Ah, I see!” Coran answers immediately, clapping his hands together as if doing so will help him understand. He finds that it doesn’t. “And um, what _is_ a rodeo, exactly?”

Hunk laughs at that, a deep belly laugh that bubbles out of him and brightens the entire room. Even though he’s still a bit confused, Coran finds he can’t help but smile back.

“Let me try that again,” Hunk rephrases. “What I mean is that this isn’t the first time some random stranger has appeared out of nowhere in the middle of my kitchen. Sure, it was terrifying at first, but after a while you get used to it. So, did you want to tell me your name?”

“Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, at your service,” Coran introduces himself with a slight bow, “and I would certainly love to hear more about this strange phenomenon of strangers teleporting into your- what did you say it was called?”

“My kitchen, the room where I cook? And it’s not really teleporting, it’s more like-” Hunk starts to say, but something dings behind him and he pauses. “Hold that thought, hang on.”

Coran shuffles as close as he can without encroaching on Hunk’s personal space as the young man pushes off the counter and turns around, reaching to open the door to a device that Coran realizes after a moment is inlaid into the wall. He can feel a blast of hot air wash over his face as Hunk reaches in and pulls a tray out, stepping back and nudging the door closed again with his foot.

Whatever is on the tray he pulled out smells absolutely delicious, and though he tries to be discreet, he can’t help but try and peek over Hunk’s shoulder at the tan colored discs he’s currently transferring onto a plate.

Apparently he isn’t nearly discreet enough, because Hunk gives him a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder and says, “They’re called chocolate chip cookies. Wanna try one?”

“I was under the impression that this was all an elaborate dream,” Coran says slowly, “so how would I be able to try anything?”

“Hey, I said this wasn’t my first rodeo, remember?” Hunk says as he picks up one of the discs he’s he’s made, except that instead of handing it to Coran, he takes a big bite of it himself.

Suddenly a burst of warmth and the taste of something sweet erupt on Coran’s tongue, as if he’d been the one to eat the “cookie” from the start. It’s sweet and gooey and just as delicious as Coran had expected it would be, but he’s almost too thrown by the fact that _he’s_ tasting it because _Hunk_ is to really enjoy it.

Coran is starting to wonder if maybe this isn’t a dream after all, but the thought is short lived as he finds his focus slipping. He feels calm, warmed through by the sweet treat, and before he can really get a grip on what’s happening, Hunk and his kitchen are melting away.

He drifts back to sleep with a sweet taste and the words of that song he shouldn’t know on the tip of his tongue.

***

Hunk takes his time finishing the cookie he’s eating, even though the man with the mustache is already gone. It had been strange experience, letting another person hijack his taste buds like that, but it was certainly a new one. Hunk can’t even say he minded it all that much.

His parents have already left for a movie tonight, and though Hunk had considered going with them, the emergency text he’d gotten from Lance leads him to believe that he’s much more needed at home.

Despite his best friend’s tendency to lean toward overdramatics, it isn’t often that he sends texts to Hunk with enough desperation that they can be called “emergencies”. There are only two types of situations that warrant that kind of distinction: life and death situations, or the times when Hunk or Lance have visions.

The two of them have been friends for nearly five years now, and Hunk can say for sure that even with all of that experience, neither of them have all the answers. But even before the two of them had met, they both had out of body experiences. In the time it would take to blink, they’d be shown snapshots of people they’d never met before, places they’d never been. They’d even had visions of each other long before they saw each other face to face. Ever since then, the two of them have been connected in ways they’re still trying to make sense of.

Like now, for instance. Hunk knows that Lance is still in his car a block away and hasn’t even turned onto his street yet, but if Hunk relaxes and concentrates, he knows that suddenly he can be sitting in the passenger seat next to Lance without his body having taken a single step out of the kitchen.

They’d been able to do this with each other ever since they were in the same class in middle school, and although Hunk would have bet money on the two of them turning out to be friends no matter what, he knew that the visions they shared had only brought them closer.

When Hunk finds himself beside Lance again, he’s parked on the street, and Hunk allows himself the fun of walking alongside him up his own driveway before returning to his body, just in time to walk down the front hall and open the door before Lance even has a chance to ring the doorbell.

“Hey, Lance!” he says with a grin, his best friend returning his big smile with an awed one of his own.

“How do you _do_ that?” Lance asks with a breathless laugh, and rather than answering him, Hunk scoops him up in a big bear hug.

“Hunk, dammit Hunk!” Lance laughs against the side of his head as he wraps his arms around Hunk’s neck. “That’s not an answer, careful, you’ll crush me!”

“Hey, I can’t give away all my secrets!” Hunk says with a grin as he puts his friend down, clapping him on the back as he leads the way to the kitchen. “Now c’mon, cookies await us. You’re not the only one who’s had visions tonight.”

“Aw, Hunk, you know I can’t resist your baking. And wait, are you serious?” Lance asks as he makes himself at home, making an immediate beeline for the plate sitting on the counter.

“Well, yeah. It happened right before you got here, actually, when I was pulling these out of the oven. So what did you see?” Hunk asks, watching Lance’s movements for any signs of stress.

“No way, you first, what did _you_ see?” Lance asks around a mouthful of cookie, reaching into Hunk’s cabinets for a cup with a practiced ease so he can help himself to a glass of milk.

“It wasn’t anything too crazy,” Hunk says as he leans back against the counter, “Just some Nigel Thornberry looking dude wanting to try some of my homemade chocolate chip cookies.”

“Wait, Nigel Thornberry? Orange hair and a big mustache, right?” Lance asks after he chews and swallows, his face lighting up in excitement at Hunk’s surprised nod, “I saw him too! There was this big abandoned castle somewhere, and he was asleep in this high tech looking pod, like something out of a sci fi movie! There was a girl, too, in the pod next to him. She was really beautiful, like a fairytale princess or something.”

“Whoa, that’s so wild!” Hunk finds himself grinning, completely caught up in Lance’s energy. “I haven’t seen any princesses yet, but that’s the first time we’ve both seen the same person, isn’t it?”

Lance nods emphatically as he takes another big bite of his cookie, but it isn’t long before the excitement begins to dial down. Lance takes his time chasing his dessert down with a swig of milk before he finally asks what’s on his mind, and Hunk patiently waits him out.

“When do you think we’re going to find out what all these weird connections actually _mean?_ ” he asks at last, his once happy expression clouded over with uncertainty. Hunk sighs and pushes off the counter, reaching out to wrap an arm around his best friend.

“I know I can’t say for sure, but maybe when we start to meet these people we keep having visions of, maybe that’s when it’ll all start to make sense.” Hunk states his theory while tucking Lance more securely under his arm. The smaller boy leans gratefully into his touch, relaxing substantially as he sighs.

“Yeah, maybe. Either way, I’m glad you’re here with me to help figure this out,” Lance says, and Hunk beams back down at him.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, buddy.”

_Twenty five years and my life is still trying to get up that great big hill of hope…_

_For a destination._


End file.
